


Her savior

by enterprisecat



Series: Floating in Space [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Nebula (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Nebula is Badass, Other, POV Alternating, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is badass as well, Valkyrie and Nebula, Valkyrie is badass, Valkyrie is savior of the day, that puts things in my mind actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-18 08:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18245981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enterprisecat/pseuds/enterprisecat
Summary: Oxygen is ending, hope has ended days before that but Universe has different plans for Tony and Nebula.My take on the rescue of the space castaways.





	1. Chapter 1 - Introductions

Not getting enough oxygen sucks even more than Tony could have suspected based on this familiarity with panic attacks. Maybe because he is not focused on getting flashbacks of the worst moments of his life, maybe because he’s aware that there won’t be more oxygen available…

Either way, it sucks. A big way.

Even Nebula is starting to show little signs of being affected. Mind you, there are really tiny, especially compared to Tony’s symptoms.

Who currently is laying a fetal position, strongly believing that some vengeful ghost is trying to split his skull in half with a hammer. Is it punishment for all the sins he committed up until now?

He laughs quietly, hysterically, with his eyes firmly closed. That’s only fair, that prolonged and painful death, but it’s so awful that Tony would gladly end it right here and now.

Nebula made sure that it’s not going to happen, taking all the potentially dangerous tools out of his reach a couple of days ago and hiding them somewhere. Tony could go a little creative, but actually the lack of oxygen is making it too much of an effort. Last three day he has spent on the floor, standing up only when nature called.

Nebula is forcing water into him, tiny amounts – they almost run out of it, and if there’s anything that can make him die even faster is dehydration. Despite the pain and confusion Tony is trying to stay as conscious and present, as possible.

Headaches.

Confusion.

Shortness of breath.

Dizziness.

Sense of euphoria.

He’s trying to focus on the list, foolishly hoping that being aware what causes him to feel this way may lessen the symptoms, but it’s all in vain. They talked with Nebula about, so she could prepare herself what to expect once oxygen level drops even lower. As it turns out, it did nothing to prepare Tony himself.

Laughter escapes him again, but this time Tony cannot stop it. He feels lighter than he did in years, since he took the god damn nuke and saw the galaxy filled with enemies that could easily destroy Earth in matter of minutes. This thought was his constant companion, during sleepless night, when he was fighting with enemies and people, he thought to be his friends, when he was cozy and warm in his own bed, with Pepper nested next to him…

Always there, this nagging thought, this fear that almost caused the destruction of Earth as they know it, that helped the destruction of his team…

It’s gone.

Unimportant.

Tony knows he can kill Thanos. Nebula can do it as well. In fact anyone and everyone is perfectly capable of killing the Mad Titan. You just need to put a bullet through his head, how hard can it be?

Tony laughs again and opens his eyes.

Nebula seems anxious. She rarely does, so even through the haze in his brain Tony is able to notice that. Why she is anxious? He just came up with the perfect plan!

“Hey, you.”

She kneels and brushes his forehead, as if checking for temperature and then sighs.

“Sense of euphoria,” her voice is distant. She’s not speaking not him, rather remembering the conversation they had before Tony started losing connection with reality. “Confusion.”

Tony has a vague feeling that she’s not treating him seriously but dismisses this thought as unimportant. Why would it matter, if he just discovered how to get rid of Thanos for good?

He tries to explain his glorious plan, but thoughts escape him each time he wants to voice them. It’s frustrating, this inability to make sense of what’s in his head.

“Listen,” he repeats, “You need to listen.”

But Nebula is not listening. In fact she’s no longer kneeling next to him. Tony forces himself to look around and notices her in the pilot’s seat checking something on a screen. She seems to be talking, too. Why would be talking? There’s no one that could receive her message after all, and Nebula doesn’t do idle talks just for the sake of it.

Tony tries to stand up and check on her. Maybe the lack of oxygen is getting to her as well?

He manages to go to all four, but the dizziness gets crazy. Tony would vomit if there was anything in his stomach. He focuses on his limbs and struggles to make them work.

“Yes,” Nebula is clearly talking with someone, “We need assistance right now.”

Tony makes to move but blackness is creeping, threating to swallow his vision.

“Nebula?”

The effort of speaking out aloud does it. Darkness swallows him whole and Tony loses consciousness on the floor of the spaceship drifting through space.

***

“Midgardian,” the voice Tony hears belongs to a stranger. A woman, that much he can say even through the haze of headache. “It’s a miracle he’s waking up already, they are not the most resilient species.”

Tony cracks his eyes open and blinks to gets more clarity.

Oh. He thought that he’d be long dead before such crazy hallucination happen.

There’s a dark-skinned woman standing in front of him, wearing an armor which sends vaguely Thor-alike vibes. The ceiling above him clearly belongs to a spaceship, but Tony has a feeling it’s not the one he lost consciousness in. Or this stranger and Nebula were able to fill their spaceship with fresh oxygen in no more than couple of hours.

Or he’s simply dead and those two women will actually make him pay for all his sins…

“Tony Stark,” the dark-haired woman says. “We might have a common colleague.”

“I don’t recall getting acquainted with any female warriors from Asgard,” Tony croaks, his throat completely dry. He doesn’t like not knowing people that know him.

She doesn’t seem surprised. “It’d be a wonder if you were, Stark. I’m afraid our friend never belonged to this elite”, she leans toward him with a glass of water. ” No, I’m talking about Thor Odyson. Have you seen him recently?”

The way she’s waiting for his answer revels a lot – she’s worried, unsure of his faith. That makes Tony relax a bit. She might be a great liar but Tony doubts she’d be playing so complicated games – her movements seem unconscious and therefore real.

“I haven’t seen him in quite a long time, “Tony admits. “The very moment I left Earth no one seen him for a couple of years, but situation seemed to be rather… dynamic.”

She nods her head and leans back. She must be disappointed but this she doesn’t reveal anything.

“Drink. Get some rest. We’ll talk when you are in better shape.”

Tony wants to protest, ask questions and actually learn who their savior is but his body took its toll. Oxygen deprivation, dehydration… He’s not twenty years old anymore.

Sleep comes quicker that he would ever expect.

***

This time he’s alone in the room upon waking up. And this time he has no issues recognizing that they are no longer aboard the spaceship that took them from Thanos’s dead home planet. The room is darker and much smaller. Some of the lights are out. There’s dried blood visible on one of the walls, a clear sign of a fight.

Tony stands up gingerly, afraid if his legs can take his weight but a couple of hours of dreamless sleep with continuous access to fresh oxygen worked miracles. He’s not only able to stand up but also to walk in a straight line, without risking falling down and crashing his skull.

It’s easy to find both women – there are only two more bigger rooms on this ship. It was clearly designed as an escape pod for a small amount of people.

“So,” Tony says without preamble. “You clearly know my name, if I remember correctly our small talk from before I went practically unconscious. Whom do we owe our lives?”

The woman turns to him from the pilot seat. Her smile is a little predatory.

“Call me Valkyrie.”


	2. Chapter 2: The Past

They are flying to Midgard.

Brunhilde doesn’t know what to think about it. What to think about anything, actually.  She has spent so many years making sure that every single piece of her is numb, that she cannot feel, think or focus on anything else than present events (and even that required some struggle). This numbness was destroyed by Thor appearance and for a moment it felt good.

Than Thanos decided to appear from nothingness and destroy her life even before it could properly start once again.

She’d love to hate Thor. Or to never meet him in the first place. His landing on Sakaar was the first step that forced her to feel and care once again.

Granted, Thanos action would affect her to some extension but as long as Grandmaster rules Sakaar her life would stay more or less the same. With a bottle in her hand and numbness in her heart and body.

And because she cares, she’s flying through space in an escape pod with a human and an alien of undisclosed race.

Valkyrie sighs and rubs hear forehead. There’s a headache waiting for her around a corner.

A bottle of something stronger could help with that.

Brunhilde shakes her head. It’s the very last position on the extremely long list of things that should not be done.

A loud sound of impatience comes from the canteen. Most likely it’s Stark trying to fix one thing or another. Ever since properly waking up two days ago it’s all he’s doing. That and drawing blue prints on various surfaces.

Valkyrie closes her eyes. Having sounds like that is strangely comforting. At the very least it’s a proof that live stills exists in the universe.

She knew all has changed forever the moment when her companions turned into dust, leaving her, again, as the sole survivor.

Fate must be laughing at her. At this point it feels more like malice than good luck – as if no matter what she did, she couldn’t enter the peacefulness of death.

Neither Nebula nor Stark could provide any reassurance. Thor might be dead, killed in the attack, or later or, by the snap. Brunhilde suspects the latest – she came back to search for Thor’s body, but it was nowhere to be found.

She couldn’t say the same for the Loki.

His body was floating through space, with seemingly broken neck. For a moment Valkyrie wanted to take it onboard but decided against it. Despite the state his body was in, Loki seemed peaceful, finally reunited with people he wanted to regard as his own.

There wasn’t much of a plan to her actions afterwards. She continued the journey to Midgard, the Earth, and every night dreamed of corpses of her fallen sisters in arms.

Up until the moment when a distress call came.

For a second, she hoped that it was Thor.

“Hey,” Stark is hovering in the doors. He’s looking better now, the sickish green tone of the skin gone, his breath regular. A huge change from being unconscious and barely breathing.

Yet, even in this healthier state he doesn’t seem capable of killing Thanos. Brunhilde listened to Nebula’s story intently but each time when she sees Tony wondering through the ship, she cannot help but think that false sense of hope is making Nebula blind to the truth. This man is nowhere near to a god’s power, and even those weren’t enough to kill Thanos, despite him not having all the Infinity Stones.

Valkyrie sees many things in him – the same survivor’s guilt that is eating her, a quiet desperation that is his main driver ever since he’s learnt that they can reach Earth. She can sense the sleepless nights mixed with nightmares. A god-alike power that could destroy Thanos? Not in the picture, unfortunately. 

“Welcome,” Brunhilde nods her head. Stark enters the room and takes a brief look on the screens. They are still over a week away from Earth at this point of their journey.

“So, Valkyrie, right?” Stark sprawls on the second pilot’s seat, apparently in a chit-chat mood. Brunhilde fleetingly considers tossing him out of the room but she might learn something new about Midgard. Plus, she could actually use some human interaction after floating for two weeks alone in the space.

Brunhilde shrugs in answer to this nonsensical question.

“Nebula is sleeping.” Stark continues. “First time I’ve seen her doing that, actually. I was starting to wonder if she does it at all.” There’s a warm feeling in his voice. He genuinely cares about his companion, Brunhilde realizes with a slight surprise. Nebula seemed trustworthy in her anger and desperation, but Brunhilde wouldn’t count on Stark feeling anything toward the woman. They barely know each other, after all.

“Do you know anything about her?”

“I will tell you if you promise not to react violently and without thinking,” Stark is deadly serious know and takes Valkyrie even further aback.

“It’s not my habit to murder those I saved,” she answers immediately.

At least not without getting a considerable payment for doing so, her consciousness adds without mercy.

Stark laughs humorlessly. “I do hope this ship is taking us home.”

He checks their journey coordinates on the screen, checks some of the settings and goes to the oxygen levels. Here he spends some time, looking at the reassuring green, and then snaps back to the reality.

“You seem trustworthy,” he admits. “But god knows I made some terrible mistakes on that matter in the past.”

Valkyrie sighs internally. It will be difficult to learn anything about Nebula when Stark is leaning heavily toward telling her the story of his life. The blue-skinned woman is an assassin, that much Brunhilde gathered from the way she moves and behaves but is interested in knowing more.

Not only because sleeping with a potential threat on the board is even more difficult. Nebula is a warrior – a different kind than her sisters, but a warrior anyway. Brunhilde cannot help but feel the spark of interest and sense of familiarity around her. Yet, Nebula is pretty much a closed book – thankful for the rescue but focused entirely on her goals.

“We all did,” she agrees. “I won’t be killing anyone unless they are a threat to me.”

“Well, that’s comforting.” Stark gives her a small smile. “Nebula is in fact Thanos daughter. He was the one that turned her into what she is now.”

His eyes darken. “I knew he was a maniac, but when I learnt why he put all those metal parts in her… That actually shows what are we dealing with. He wanted to upgrade her.”, he is shaking his head right now. “How could you possibly do it to a child.”

Even in the landscape of tragic events in Valkyrie’s life, turning a kid into a half-mechanic assassin lands pretty high on the list of terrible things.

“I’ve seen her fighting Thanos,” Stark continues. “He killed her sister before killing half of the universe. You could say it’s pretty personal.”

Brunhilde nods her head. It’s good to know that Nebula is their ally with all her heart, especially considering that she seems perfectly capable of killing everyone in their sleep.

Stark wonders off after that. Valkyrie knows he’s tinkering with his suit in the canteen room, but the resigned groans she can hear confirm that the limited tools and space isn’t helping.

She checks the course once again.

Around eight days left before they journey ends.

Still going straight to Midgard.


	3. Chapter 3: Journey

Not being able to dream has its advantages. One good thing that came from the upgrades given to Nebula by Thanos – inability to have nightmares about all the terrible acts of crime committed against her or by her.

There was a time in her life when she was yearning for dreams as her way of escaping the reality. Thanos must have noticed that because soon enough new electronic chips were implanted in her brain, slowly eating away her dreams.

At first, it was scary. Then Nebula realized that no dreams meant also no nightmares, no repetition of the events of the day with even more twisted endings, and she learnt to welcome the peacefulness of the night.

She is welcoming it now as well.

Nebula is used to a constant strain that either she or someone else puts on her body, but even she has her limits. Loosing Gamora, fighting Thanos only to witness his victory, an escape that could not, should not have succeeded…

Nebula isn’t the one to give up leadership easily. If she not acting alone, she is the one making final decisions. Somehow, giving it up now, to the unknown Valkyrie is much easier than it should be.

Maybe because she seems to be as determined as any of them is. Maybe because she has the gaze of a person who has seen and lost too much in her life.

Or maybe because Nebula is too tired to continue like this.

Her bed is warm around her and feeling of comfort is almost foreign after so long.

The quiet knock on the door wakes her up completely. For a second, she wants to pretend to be still asleep but the need to be up to date, stay on the track is too strong.

“Come in.”

It’s the Valkyrie, in place of Stark she has expected to see.

She takes a look on the still partially covered with duvet Nebula and smiles a little. Just a flash of it but it makes Nebula almost smile in return.

Valkyrie opts to sit next to her bed.

“We are 3 days from Earth,” she says. “Stark is getting more and more anxious, I believe that the unknown faith of people close to him is the reason. Have you ever been to Earth?”

Nebula travelled through most of the Galaxy, but Earth was not on the list. It didn’t seem important enough – how wrong they were to think so.

She shakes her head now. “I am not sure what to expect. As far as I’m aware humanity doesn’t have any good experience with aliens. I’m hoping that Stark will be able to ensure no sudden deaths as a part of the welcoming party.”

“Do you really believe Stark has a vital part in the fight against Thanos?” there is doubt in Valkyrie’s voice and Nebula is not surprised by that. Haven’t she been a part of the battle arm in arm with Stark, she’d doubt his abilities as well.

“Thanos addressed him personally,” she answers slowly. “He rarely does that, used to treating most of living creatures as something beneath him. As if he knew Stark is a worthy opponent.”

“Part of me wants to believe he’s our key to the victory,” she continues. “Part of me cannot really believe it. Either way, without him I doubt we’d be greeted warmly on Earth.”

“Stark told me about your sister,” Valkyrie’s face is gentle now. “I am sorry. I know how it feels to lose your family – I haven’t avenged mine, but it will be an honor to me to help you avenge yours.”

Nebula’s guts twist in an unexpected way. Ever since Quill and the rest of the guardians turned into dust Nebula was sure that she won’t be getting on help in avenging Gamora. Then Stark happened, resigned and defeated but still compassionate and ready to help.

Now Valkyrie was proposing her assistance.

Remarkable.

Nebula wasn’t aware she’s capable of feeling so much after having taken so much away.

“I…” she pauses, overwhelmed. “Thank you.”

***

Every minute is taking them closer to Earth and they cannot help but wonder how their journey will end. Has anyone capable of helping them survived Thanos attack?

Especially Stark is a contestant buzz of a nervous energy. He stopped sleeping two days ago, tinkering with his gears all the time, even though he doesn’t seem to be progressing any further with fixing them. It’s personal for him, more than it can be for Nebula. She knows whom she lost. Stark is still living on hope.

Should this hope be crushed upon their arrival, Stark could as well be dead.

Losing his kid almost did it. After Nebula dragged him into the spaceship, he was unresponsive for a couple of hours, looking into one point with unfocused eyes. She was more than surprised when he came back to himself.

He didn’t say much about those that stayed on Earth – a fiancée, friends. Stark didn’t seem to question their survival, not even for a second, but now his certainty is gone.

“Are you sure those are correct coordinates?” Nebula asks, only to have Stark focus on something that aren’t his dark thoughts. Plus, the confidence while providing them felt a little too much. Could he really remember coordinates so well?

Stark gives her an incredulous look.

“I decided on those coordinates, bought a land, I partially designed this god damn place,” he shakes his head. “I am more than capable of remembering a couple of numbers.”

Valkyrie observes them with a small smile on her lips. Nebula suspects that she knows her true intentions. At least Stark is engaging in conversation instead of wasting his energy on pointless actions that can only further weary him but aren’t helpful in the slightest.

 “It was built not only as a military compound,” Stark continues with vague air of irritation, “but also as a home.”

He falls silent for a moment.

“Didn’t work so perfectly for the latest,” he admits. “But even empty…”

The silence is longer now. An empty compound would mean that his friends, everyone close to him is dead, either killed by Thanos during the battle, or turned into dust afterwards.

“Even empty is filled with stuff that can help us,” he finally continues, his voice a little choked. “Computers, tracking devices… All my tools necessary to build whether we could need to take this bastard down. It’s all there.”

“Good,” Nebula checks the inputted coordinates. “Then we will use them.”

She turns to Stark and Valkyrie. There’s a smile on her lips, a terrifying one.

“We will use them and take this bastard down.”

 

 


End file.
